A Reynolds High School teacher who taught gunman Jared Michael Padgett for English class said the freshman recently gave a presentation that showed sympathy for victims of persecution and acknowledgement that atrocities still occur.

Brian Jay, a language arts teacher at the school, emailed to clarify details of a disagreement in his class involving Padgett that had been shared with The Oregonian by a student. He said he was concerned that the incident, which was described in limited fashion, could be misinterpreted.

Jay said Padgett had given a presentation last week on the book "Night" by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as part of a class assignment. Other students had also given their presentation on the book, which had been assigned in their world history class, Jay said.

At the end of Padgett's presentation, the 15-year-old noted the themes of the book -- war and persecution of others -- and said that these kinds of things are still happening today, Jay recalled. But that sparked a brief, perhaps 30-second disagreement, he said.

"What I inferred is that students were disagreeing with the first statement on grounds that there were no more concentration camps," Jay said in his email.

The teacher noted that Padgett had previously been reading a book called "Long Way Gone" about child soldiers in Sierra Leone -- another assigned book from his world-history class.

"I thought he was trying to say genocide and religious persecution are still common. As the class disagreed he got really defensive and raised his voice, which seemed to me like frustration from not being understood," Jay wrote. The teacher noted that Padgett was sympathetic to the victims of atrocities in his presentation.

Jay did not know Emilio Hoffman, the freshman who was killed by Padgett on Tuesday. He said he recalled Padgett as "polite, friendly, outgoing, serious about his grades, a gun enthusiast, into JROTC and really open about his love of first-person shooter games."

"This is tough for everyone," he said. "I know we're all struggling with what happened."